HIRING STRATEGY AUDIT FOR FREE HERE
Client LoginValues, Passions, Talents and Purpose: Are they guiding your career choices?
Most people build careers backwards—chasing job titles instead of alignment. 🤔
In the built environment sector, we often follow predictable paths. Graduate, get chartered, climb the ladder. But what if this approach misses the point of our existence entirely?
Values, passions, talents and purpose aren't just fluffy concepts—they're practical tools for navigating today's changing industry landscape. 💡
Your values serve as your career compass, your foundational bedrock. An architect who valued collaboration left her prestigious solo practice to join a firm where team design was standard. Though the move seemed like a step down to colleagues, her job satisfaction soared because the environment honoured what truly mattered to her.
Can you name your top three values right now? If not, start there. Ask yourself what's truly non-negotiable in your work life. 🧭
Passions fuel your professional journey, it’s what you resonate with and gives you driving energy. A civil engineer passionate about environmental restoration shifted from commercial development to specialising in brownfield remediation projects. His career took a temporary pay cut, but his expertise in this growing niche eventually made him more marketable than generalist peers.
Many built environment professionals reinvent their careers by combining passions. A quantity surveyor who loved both historical buildings and technology developed specialised expertise in heritage BIM, creating a unique career path that brought him joy. 🎨
Talents are your natural gifts, so use them. A project manager with exceptional people skills used this talent to transition from project delivery to a client-facing role in business development. She found more career advancement by leveraging her natural strengths than by forcing herself into technical specialisation.
Purpose connects everything, it gives meaning, clear direction and raw motivation. A structural engineer redesigned his career after realising his purpose was making buildings accessible to all. He now consults on inclusive design, teaches at university, and sits on accessibility committees—creating impact far beyond what his original career track offered. 🌟
Finding the right company match
When job hunting, these internal compasses become your most powerful tools. A site manager prioritising family values declined a higher-paying role with extensive travel requirements in favour of a local position with regular hours. Five years later, she'd advanced further than colleagues who jumped between companies chasing salaries.
Investigate company culture through targeted questions during interviews. A graduate who asked, "Can you describe how someone in this role might develop their career here over five years?" discovered a firm that would nurture her passion for sustainable design through mentorship and specialty project assignments. 🔍
The sustainability consultant researching potential employers studied their completed projects rather than marketing materials. This revealed which firms truly delivered on green building principles rather than those who merely claimed to value sustainability.
The surprising truth? The most successful career moves often combine strategic compromises. A facilities manager passionate about historic buildings took a role managing modern offices that offered training in heritage property management. This sideways move ultimately positioned him for his dream role at a heritage trust.
Start with whichever element speaks clearest to you:
👉Decline opportunities that violate your core values, regardless of prestige
👉Seek roles where your natural talents add value
👉Build side projects that nurture passions your main role doesn't satisfy
👉Volunteer for tasks aligned with your purpose until you can make it your career
In an industry facing skills shortages, technological transformation and climate challenges, those who understand their internal drivers navigate changes more effectively. ⚓
The town planner who identified her purpose in creating community-centred spaces proactively sought community engagement projects within her existing role before eventually specialising. Rather than waiting for the perfect job, she reshaped her current one.
Five steps to navigate your professional journey
Step 1 - Follow your excitement daily - Pursue what genuinely energises you in your work. The building surveyor who loved problem-solving found moments in each project to apply this passion, gradually shifting towards diagnostic specialisation.
Step 2 - Give your full commitment - Whatever excites you, do it wholeheartedly. A landscape architect pursued her interest in therapeutic gardens with such dedication that she became the firm's expert, eventually heading their healthcare division.
Step 3 - Release attachment to outcomes - Focus on the journey, be the change, stay in the moment, not what the outcome should be. The construction manager who enjoyed mentoring junior staff without expecting recognition eventually built the most loyal team in his company.
Step 4 - Maintain positivity through challenges - Choose resilience when faced with setbacks, there is always a lesson to be had, this is how we learn and grow. An engineering consultant whose sustainable design was initially rejected kept a solution-focused mindset, eventually seeing her innovations adopted industry-wide.
Step 5 - Examine and update your belief systems - Release & replace beliefs that no longer serve who you prefer to be, i.e. fear-based beliefs is a good place to start. The young site manager who challenged his limiting belief that he was too young to be a Project Manager, despite being told this many times, ended up becoming the youngest Regional Director in the history of the company.
When was the last time you asked if your career choices truly align with what matters to you and gives you joy and fulfilment? 🤔